Rocchi’s Retro Rental: Donald Westlake, 1933-2008

I know, I know — I wrote about a crime film last week. And there’s always the danger of turning this column into a constantly rotating memorial, where whichever notable personage in the world of film who passed that week gets written up. But Donald Westlake died this week — on New Year’s Eve, heading for dinner — and all I could think about was Point Blank.

Westlake is an unsung hero of crime fiction, probably because he actually wrote good, superbly-made crime fiction back before it was a way to find fame and fortune by churning out serial killer novels as inept as they are grisly. (Really, can someone stop James Patterson? Anyone?) Westlake wrote fun, crackling caper novels — where there was a sense of risk but never a sense of menace, where there were stakes on the table and still sparkle in the dialogue. Many of his stories revolved around a hapless professional burglar named John Dortmunder, whose criminal career felt like a day job, full of petty disagreements and annoying setbacks and the same annoyances any working stiff puts up with. Lots of the Dortmunder novels have been turned into films, some of which are enjoyable (The Hot Rock, Why Me?) and some of which are horrible (What’s the Worst that Could Happen?).

But Westlake had another set of novels — which, as he noted, he wrote when it was rainy — published under the name Richard Stark, mostly revolving around another career criminal named Parker. Parker — no first name — was not a likable scamp trying to get by; he was (and is — Westlake never stopped writing Parker novels as Stark) a grim, blank-faced force of nature who pulls jobs and takes other people’s money. The Parker novels all revolve around a similar axis: Parker is engaged in a robbery, and then Parker’s latest set of collaborators steal his share of the take from him, or something goes wrong with the job and Parker must put things right with decisive action and rough justice. Yet, there’s something reassuring in how mechanical they are, something as clean and crisp of the snick-snack you hear when a well-oiled automatic cycles a round into the chamber. Many directors have turned the Parker novels into movies, but one of the best is Point Blank, John Boorman’s slick, nasty thriller based on the first Parker novel, The Hunter.

Lee Marvin plays Walker — an entirely appropriate re-naming, as Marvin stalks through the film like a haunting ghost — who we meet wounded, ruined, and battered. He’s been robbed and left for dead, and he is dragged back from death’s door and full of purpose: He wants his money. His old confederate who left him for dead took Walker’s share from their heist and used it to get back in with “the outfit.” Walker wants his money. That’ll involve taking on the whole mob, just as a matter of principle. They’ll set traps for him, friends will become enemies, hard men with murderous intent will be placed in his way.

Walker wants his money.

Lee Marvin’s great in the role — there’s no backstory, no discussion of what made Walker who he is, just headlong forward motion like a bullet filmed in slow-motion, the passing seconds just adding to your sick feeling of what’s going to happen when he gets to where he’s going. Character actors like Keenan Wynn, Carol O’Connor, and John Vernon play the men in Walker’s way, tough guys who find out the hard way that they’re not as tough as they think they are, or at least as not as tough as Walker. The DVD of Point Blank is terrific — superbly restored, along with a commentary track by Boorman and Steven Soderbergh, who in many ways paid tribute to Point Blank with The Limey. It’s a movie that holds up on its own merits as Westlake’s — or, rather, Stark’s — elementally pure story goes from threat to murder to threat to murder as Walker, stone-faced and cold-blooded, tears down a multi-million dollar criminal enterprise because someone stole $93,000 from him. (Point Blank was remade as Payback, with Mel Gibson in the lead role, but trust me: This is one of those cases that serves as the foundation for the cliche about how remakes are inferior to the originals.) Westlake wrote on a manual typewriter, wrote constantly — he has at least one book slated for publication — and if you want to get a sense of just why crime fiction aficionados were feeling down on New Year’s Day, Point Blank can give you an excellent understanding.

James Rocchi is a film critic who, surprisingly, actually likes movies. He currently is a senior writer for AOL’s Cinematical.com as well as a columnist for American Movie Classics and writes theatrical and DVD reviews for Redbox.com. He’s written about pop culture and movies for publications like Mother Jones and Metro Newspapers, and he was the film critic for Netflix from 2001-2005 and the film critic for San Francisco’s CBS-5 from 2005-2008. When not sitting expectantly in the dark of a movie theater, Rocchi enjoys California’s scenic beauty, the company of his cat Coaly and talking about himself in the third person. You can find Rocchi’s Retro Rental every Tuesday, right here on the Culture Blog.